by Denise O’Brien Van
The four-story building hit by fire Oct. 21 has sat on the west side of Highway 4/Elm Street immediately 
south of the east-west railroad tracks in Jefferson for almost a century. (See related story on LEC/Court page.)
In its heyday, the brick (later stuccoed) structure was an important industrial site, serving as a large warehouse complete with a freight elevator and the home of a local agribusiness. As it aged it became a satellite fabrication site for a local manufacturer, an art gallery and, finally, a place to host flea markets and stash tools. With a footprint of about 3,100 square feet on a half-acre plot zoned for light industrial or commercial use, the building, the land it sits on and several storage units was valued at $25,600 in 2012.
In its long history, the building has been the property of several prominent Jeffersonians.
It was erected as a warehouse in 1915, probably by David Milligan, a pioneer Greene County grain and lumber dealer who had owned the land it sat on since the1880s. A Milligan grain elevator had previously occupied the site.
The property passed down through the Milligan family until 1946, when it was purchased by local contractor F.E. McCain, who sold it the same year to the Howard Iowa Products Co., which made agricultural products, including animal feed.
In 1960, local hardware store owner Newt Seela purchased the building. Seela’s son-in-law Bill Sorenson, founder of American Athletic Inc., manufactured javelins in the building in the late 1960s.
Seela’s heirs sold the building to Alice Carman Nipps in 1985. A sculptor, Nipps had her studio and an art gallery in the building. Her heirs sold it to Dayle Erickson in 2005 for $11,000.
Editors note: Info for this story was found in the Greene County auditor’s transfer books.
